


Obsessions

by WritingYay



Category: Actor RPF, Rocketman (2019) RPF
Genre: Acting, Angst, Crying, Cute, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Language, Feelings, Fluff, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Humour, Love, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Miscommunication, Sadness, Sorting Their Shit Out, Stupid Boys, Swearing, Time Skips, friendships, slight AU, stay with me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 11:59:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19150603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingYay/pseuds/WritingYay
Summary: Taron knew that calling his bond with Richard a ‘friendship’ was entirely ignorant. It was more of an obsession, with an unhealthy amount of communication stemming from constant texting and sleepy midnight calls. Looking back on it, his dependence on the other man had been abysmally crippling. Richard was his nicotine; lingering pleasure but with roughness you knew was going to kill you in the end.





	Obsessions

_April 2020_

It had been a grand total of eleven months since _Rocketman_ had been released. Taron’s world had truly been turned upside down; there was genuinely no comparison between the shitstorm of _Kingsman_ and the utter madness that had been handed to him after this film’s critical acclaim. Taron was the talk of Hollywood, Taron was rich beyond belief, Taron had people falling at his feet, Taron-

Taron was indescribably lonely. 

Taron genuinely didn’t know who was an actual friend and who was a fame-hungry groupie. 

Taron missed, with all his jet-lag beaten heart, a particular Scottish heartthrob who had waltzed in and out of Taron’s life like a fleeting dream. When the texts and midnight FaceTime calls had begun to dwindle away by the ninth month, Elton had pulled Taron into a crushing hug and sighed into his ear:

“You are going to make yourself poorly if you continue to torture yourself with waiting for him.”

Those had been his exact words. It was hardly Shakespeare, and it wasn’t something Taron didn’t already know, but nevertheless hearing the words said aloud had caused to him to burst out into ugly heaving sobs. Elton hadn’t even so much as flinched. With a knowing huff, he had led Taron away from the crowds gathered at their mansion for Elijah’s birthday party and bundled him into a private reception room.

“This is so unbelievably stupid.” Taron had sniffed, much _much_ later. He was making Elton miss his son’s celebrations because he was crying over a 33-year-old bastard who made him feel like the most inadequate person in the world. “We weren’t even together.”

Elton had shrugged, the orange rimmed sunglasses on his nose bouncing slightly. “Doesn’t mean the ghosting hurts any less.”

His best friend Holly had echoed those sentiments the day after. Elton had clearly briefed her over Taron’s meltdown concerning a very particular old colleague, because she had turned up at his house wearing a stern expression and a tub of melting Ben & Jerrys stuffed into her LV bag.

“Is this because you wish you’d told him how you feel before he started pretending like you don’t exist?” She’d said to him whilst halfway through a mouthful of Minter Wonderland. Taron had looked up with a start from _Inside No.9_ and whined.

“No, but I do now!” The full weight of the situation dropped onto his shoulders and suddenly he couldn’t breathe. “Cheers, Holls.”

Holly frisbeed her bowl of ice cream onto the coffee table and had pulled him into a suffocating hug of warmth and cherries. “Sorry, babe. Fuck, Tay, forget I said anything.”

Taron’s eyes felt dry. Every time he blinked, his lashes would catch on his waterline and stick there, causing the already welling tears to multiply. He pillowed his temple on the young woman’s shoulder and inhaled shakily.

“I thought I meant something.”

Holly’s breath had tickled the side of his neck when she’d sighed, deep and restless.

“You do, to me. You mean something to Elton, and Jamie, and your Mum. It doesn’t matter that he refused to see that, baby.” Then, she pulled back and studied his face like she was looking for the first signs of cracking. “His loss.”

 

_January 2019_

As it turns out, stimulating a sex scene whilst entirely butt-naked with a man you haven’t known for more than two months is a great conversation starter to begin a friendship.

Taron knew that calling his bond with Richard a ‘friendship’ was entirely ignorant. It was more of an obsession, with an unhealthy amount of communication stemming from constant texting and sleepy midnight calls. Looking back on it, his dependence on the other man had been abysmally crippling. Richard was his nicotine; lingering pleasure but with roughness you knew was going to kill you in the end.

Their texting habit started after the day of filming the love scene. Dex was so adamant that it be called as such, because even though Taron had to gyrate his hips and moan breathlessly into Richard’s open mouth, it was “raw and beautiful and meaningful and ‘sex scene’ sounds like a porno so if you don’t call it a love scene on the press tour I’ll fucking kill the both of you”. 

“I hope it looks good.” Richard tells him, after they step back into their dressing gowns after filming the sex- sorry, _love_ scene. Taron doesn’t hear him the first time, so when he looks up to find Richard’s bemused expression, small smirk and all, he grimaces.

“Sorry mate, I was miles away. Say again?”

Richard’s cocky smirk relaxes into a soft smile. “I said, I hope it looks good.”

His hair was wavy and sticking in all different directions from when Taron had threaded his hands through it and gasped.

“I’m sure it will, Dex seemed happy. Plus, we’ve literally spent hours on it so we’ve got no excuse.” Taron says and stretches out his neck in straining motions. He’d been lying on Richard for long periods with few breaks, bowing his head to capture his co-worker’s pillow lips in fiery kisses. At the time, it had been fine because he had the opportunity to press himself flat against the chest of Britain’s sweetheart, but now his muscles were pulsing. Richard catches him wincing and stands up from the bed to place a strong hand on Taron’s shoulder.

“Hurts?” He offers, and schools in features into concentration when Taron nods dumbly. His fingers dig in to the knots embedded in Taron’s pale column with one hand whilst the other gently splays out at his collarbone to force him still. Taron’s mouth slips open in a hiss when Richard’s fingers catch a particular ache. The older man doesn’t retract his hand, instead his ploughs on, massaging over the spots relentlessly until Taron has to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from swearing.

Out of the blue, the strain dissipates. He blows out a breath and only then does Richard let his hands fall away with a wink. Taron arches his neck and widens his eyes in surprise at the relaxed pull.

“Where did you learn to do that?”

Richard shrugs, again, to keep up the quiet demeanour. A man of facial expressions, not words.

“I’m full of surprises.” He reasons, and then turns on his heels and walks off towards the trailers, leaving Taron awkwardly milling around on set. The crew carries on with their day, and nobody mentions what had just publicly occurred.

“Yeah,” Taron whispers to himself, and slides on his flip-flops. “You are.”

That night, it started. 

Taron was snuggled up in bed, wishing that his brain would calm down and stop replaying Richard bloody Madden grabbing his arse for seven hours straight. He had rolled over for the fiftieth time with a huff, just as his phone awoke in blue illuminations. He groans, because nobody texts anymore. All of his friends used social media to make contact, or usually rang him to drunkenly scream down the speakers instead. The fact that he was being texted meant it was either his Mum or his agent. 

It wasn’t.

‘Richard M’ brands his phone screen in daunting letters when he swipes it open. His nose scrunches up into a display of misunderstanding. Why was Richard texting him? To ask when their call time was tomorrow? To ask about the script? To apologise for putting his hands on him intimately when they didn’t know each other that well?

_Did a sports physiotherapy course when I was sixteen._

Taron blinks. That was it. What, the fuck.

 _That’s an outright lie_ , he texts, his tongue poking out between his lips, _there’s no way you would remember how to do that in your mid-thirties_

The reply is instantaneous.

_I’m 32._

_You don’t look it._

Richard was also probably tucked up in his trailer, smiling at his phone like Taron’s doing now. That was a weird concept. If Taron stood far enough to the right of his window, he could spot the door of Richard’s trailer across the courtyard.

_Dickhead ;)_

That causes Taron to chuckle to himself. He had been so damn sure that Richard found him an annoying brat when they first met. Now, they were flirting over text, which seemed a thousand times more scandalous than when they’d been rolling around stark-bollocked-naked on a bed in front of twenty people who were busy thinking about lunch.

They texted throughout the night, and the next night, and the next. Within weeks, they were plastered over each other’s Instagram’s and had resulted to executing late-night FaceTime. It became normality for Taron to sit in Richard’s lap on set as they waited for re-sets and for Richard to pull Taron to his side as they walked around the site. Their hands would slip together for comfort; not one person saw anymore than a close friendship. Best friends, in fact.

An obsession.

Richard hated nicknames. He loathed any variation of his name, and couldn’t understand why Holly would call Taron every pet name under the sun. Then, one fateful sunny day-

“I’ll see you later, T.” Richard had thrown over his shoulder when he had finished for the shift and Taron’s body had the audacity to freeze. The man hated variations, and yet Taron was special enough for Richard to break that moral. Fuck. So, Taron engaged all his strength, and tried something a week after.

“Cheers, Madden.” He rasps after rehearsing _I’m Still Standing_ when his co-star hands him a glass of water. His eyes stay firmly trained on the liquid cascading down his throat, before flicking up to Richard. Richard, who was wearing a confused yet _pleased_ grin and gazing at Taron like he was the most special person in the world. 

From that day, Richard’s contact in Taron’s phone was simply ‘Madden’. No trashy emoji, no formality, just a simple nickname that was his to use and his alone.

It changed to ‘Richard’ not long after, and that burned a small part of Taron’s soul in motherfucking fireworks. 

 

_January 2020_

The world loved Richard. Richard was more cynical about the world and tolerated most of it, but whatever. Nobody asked the celebrity. 

Contact between them had slowed down considerably, but at least they still talked. Taron (well, Holly did after she had to dispel the sixth anxiety attack in three days) reasoned that it was because they were both extremely busy. The press tour had been amazing, and the fandom was rife, but with the turn of the New Year came a stilted quiet that Taron loathed. The night of the Golden Globes would signify the first time Taron had seen Richard face to face in over two months. He had rehearsed this chill speech to question why their friendship had died down. It was going to be mature, and breezy, and professional. He wasn’t going to carry on their obsession, he was going to work out what was going on and either mould their friendship into something new or walk away. He was. 

“Two Golden Globes.” Taron yells in his face, instead. “How the actual fuck have _you_ got two Golden Globes?”

Richard tumbles through the hotel room door after him, giggling hysterically. They were both on their third (fifth) glasses of champagne after Richard had excelled in the award sector again. In the back of Taron’s mind, he kinda knew that he would like to win one of those one day, but that thought was dampened by the pride rushing through his veins for the sweating, rumpled man with the gorgeous blinding smile trying to unlace his shoes next to him.

“I honestly don’t know.” He shrugs, and gives up swiftly on his Armani footwear. Lucky bastard. “The Gods are smiling down on me today.”

Taron actually barks out a laugh at that, because when were they not?

“Fuck me, look at you. You’re so perfect it’s sickening.” He voices his thoughts with hyperbolic disgust that makes him sound hoarse and desperate. Richard flutters his eyelashes at him, and then blows Taron a kiss when he flips him off. 

Happiness surged through his veins like liquid sunshine. Here he was, with his best friend who had just won a prestigious accolade for a film Taron had the pleasure of doing a sex scene with him for, and high on life (champagne) in a beautiful country. 

“Adorable.”

“I am so,” Taron hiccups, glaringly aware that he was very drunk. “So proud of you, man.”

Richard beams at him like he hung the moon.

“Couldn’t have done this shit without you.” He says gently, and salutes Taron with the stem of his champagne glass. Purple rings his eyes and he looks distant, but also well on the way to being paralytic. 

Taron snorts. “Are you calling our critically acclaimed, s- _shit_ -successful film ‘this shit’?”

His fingers creak obscenely over the inverted commas and Richard has the audacity to throw his head back and laugh. Taron wasn’t joking.

“Nah,” he mutters and stares forlornly into his glass. “I mean all this crap that comes with it.”

And that… well Taron doesn’t have the slightest clue about what to reply to that. He thinks about all of the amazing opportunities they’d been given with the release and all of the shit they had gotten away with on the press tour. He thinks about their friendship, and the weirdly functional family dynamic they had going on with Elton and David. His gaze settles on the award cast to the bedside table in Richard’s hotel room like it’s nothing and suddenly he feels extremely prickly.

“You’ve just won a Golden Globe.” He states very slowly, just to make sure he hadn’t dreamt the last three hours. Richard rolls his eyes and tugs at the plump flesh of his lower lip in resignation. 

“I know.”

“Then why are you not appreciating all of this?”

He’s met with piercing ice eyes that have a tightness to them to indicate exhaustion. The lip falls out between Richard’s teeth and then his arms fold across his chest and _oh god_ -

“I didn’t say I don’t appreciate the box office success, or the attention, or the Globe, Taron. I genuinely do feel so thankful for it all, but-” his voice trails off into a pathetic whisper that Taron yearns to run after.

“Hey,” Taron forces his posture to relax itself and he leans back against the hotel room door with all the elegance of a giraffe. “What’s wrong with you?”

Richard’s eyes soften for a heartbeat before he’s putting his champagne glass down on the floor and falling to sit on the bed in a dead weight. He shrugs, his suit collar bunching up around his ears to make him look much younger than he claimed to be. There’s a horrible scratching sound as he scrapes his bitten nail against the dust collecting on his sleeve.

“S’all a bit much.” His gaze stays firmly trained on his wrist.

“Ten quid says you’ll have a girl in here twenty minutes after I head off to make yourself feel better?” Taron forces himself to say, the joking thread he tries to weave through his voice falling very flat. He gets arched eyebrows in return, and a very odd look glinting in his friend’s eyes.

“That’s a bet I’m willing to take?”

“I retract.” Taron says immediately. The champagne glass rings when he places it down and Richard winces. “Why, dry spell?”

He wishes he hadn’t asked.

Richard’s lips quirk upwards and he winks cheekily. Just like that, they fall into a lads routine of gentle ribbing and any lasting meaning they had between them dissipates. “You wish.”

 _Yeah_ , Taron thinks, _maybe I do_.

He shakes his head to himself, Richard fixing him with a concerned look.

“It’s your choice?”

“Nah,” Richard replies, “this hotel is full of the industry anyway.”

Taron cocks his head to the side and frowns. “Problem?”

Oh fuck please say no. Please.

“Just not feeling it.”

“Fair enough.” Taron tells him and steps backwards to slump against the closed door. “I get you, anybody I date in the industry is just a warm body at night.” 

He expects Richard to nod along, but the brunette’s eyes bulge and he does a visible double take. Taron realises that it’s not Richard’s take on the industry at all and his stomach somersaults.

“Right,” Richard grinds out slowly and drops his head to his chest. “Yep.”

His body extends into a line of beauty when he stands up and Taron’s breath catches. It was the alcohol, he tells himself, when his face flushes as Richard stalks towards him. It was the humidity, he lies to himself, that makes him shiver through the heat when Richard reaches out to brush his fingertips across his sternum. 

“Madden?” 

Richard doesn’t hear him. The wandering hands drag down his shirt and settle on Taron’s hips to finger the waistband of his trousers. What the-

An animalistic glare Taron had never seen before ignites the other man’s features. His lips part, and then suddenly he leans forwards to slot them with Taron’s and pushes.

For the first time in his whirlwind life, the young Welsh boy with a love of music could _feel_.

He could feel Richard’s tongue running along the seam of his lip, he could feel hands curling across his pelvis to unfurl at the small of his back, and he could feel Richard canter his hips forwards to press their crotches together heatedly. There’s nothing Taron can do except hold on for dear life and cradle the back of Richard’s skull in his palms. He arches his neck to tug Richard’s lip between his teeth, earning him a whimper, and curses his body for getting them into this trouble in the first place.

Richard pushes a knee between Taron’s legs and he opens up pliantly, until he can squeeze his thighs around Richard’s arse and pull him impossibly closer. They trade desperate kisses until Taron’s mind is a heady mess of smoke and Richard’s lips. Suddenly, Richard seems to remember where he is and stops dead. Taron makes a coo of indignation when he pulls back, and then fear rises up at the insecurity shining in his man’s eyes.

“T.” Richard mouths, all breathy exhalations. His thumb comes up to swipe its pad across the arch of Taron’s cupids bow. Their gazes were in lockdown, and Taron finds himself counting the flecks of grey flashed through the other man’s irises in a half-hearted attempt to will away the hardness swelling in his suit. 

Time was like jelly. Taron wants to prod at the clock to get it to move again, to force Richard to do something, but at the same time he yearns to be pressed against the cool surface forever, shaky legs and all.

Richard suddenly blinks, and when flits his stare back up, it’s panicked and regretful. His fingers squeeze Taron’s hips one more time, and Taron hopes to every deity that his slender digits would leave marks, to prove that he didn’t dream this. Another blink, and Taron was vulnerable and freezing as the Scotsman walks away with a hand clenched in his own hair.

Taron stands there ridiculously with his jaw hanging open and his lips burning, and Richard buggers off with a pained look in his eyes that makes him want to throw himself off the balcony. 

 

_May 2020_

Now, it had been a year since the release. Taron hadn’t spoken to Richard since the incident at the Golden Globes, and hadn’t commented on his Instagram since early November. Of course, the fandom was losing their shit, but you can’t fake a continued perfect friendship when there isn’t a friendship to fabricate. Elton had broken the news that the cast had to do a special press event to celebrate the one-year release, and Taron had wanted the ground to swallow him up. 

“S’gonna be a shitshow.” He mourns to Holly, his phone wedged between his cheek and shoulder as his fingers deftly do up his shirt. The LA heat was sweltering. It was going to ruin Taron’s chances of showing Richard what he had thrown away, he knew it.

“Probs.” Holly murmurs, yawning. 

Taron swears at her, and his heart clenches when she chuckles. God, how he wished he had backup. 

“What am I gonna say?”

His list of questions were endless, but they all followed a similar pattern. _Why did you throw me away after I ran out of uses, you insensitive, oblivious, heart-breaking piece of shit?_.

“Something practical,” Holly says firmly, reading his mind. “But not until you have to. Don’t shake his hand and call him a bastard.”

“Damn,” he replies, looking in the full-length mirror one last time. “That was Plan A.”

Thirty minutes later saw Taron restlessly pacing the hotel lobby as they waited for the rest of the main cast to arrive, Richard included. Bryce was chatting pleasantly to Jamie, but both of them had their firm focus on solely him in picture perfect worry. 

“Sit down.” Jamie demands, when Taron floats back in front of them after his third circuit. They weren’t stupid, they must’ve noticed the futility and the tension. 

“Sorry.” Is all he can offer, and Jamie’s expression softens considerably. 

“It will be fine. He’ll be fine.”

Taron nods, and doesn’t believe him.

It takes another ten minutes for Richard to arrive from his hotel. They know this, because the crescendo of the fans crowded outside the hotel’s doors explodes in an uproar. Bryce winces as they stand. The arrival of His Highness means they can finally get started. Taron’s breath catches in his throat when Richard saunters through the revolving door. He’s wearing a baby blue suit that makes his eyes look even brighter, and a crisp white t-shirt that accentuates his chest muscles. Feeling more inadequate than he already had done, Taron pulls his dark blue shirt tighter over his biceps and offers the older man a forced smile. It gets returned, but there’s no emotion in Richard’s normally expressive eyes. 

The press event is, in one word, _hellish_. Dex sits him and Richard at opposite ends of the panel, which he knows is going to cause tidal waves in the fandom. They get asked mundane questions about the success of the film, and Taron tumbles all of his remaining passion into his answers to get Dex to smile; his saving grace. He enjoys hearing Bryce talk about her latest film, and pretends he knows what she’s talking about and not thinking about how glaringly obvious it was that him and Richard hadn’t even looked at each other. 

Taron is shakily aware that nobody’s asked about his and Richard’s… _bromance_ which is both a relief and an issue. It meant that they had been too obvious about their friendship dying away, and Taron begins to torture himself with guessing what people were already saying about them.

“…Taron? T-Taron? _Taron?_ ” 

The alarm laced into Dex’s voice slams Taron’s mind back into his body with a shudder. He blinks, and surveys the room with panic when he realises that everyone’s staring at him. Even Richard is watching him closely, a flicker of concern animating his guarded eyes. Fuck. They’d been trying to get his attention for a while.

“I’m so sorry!” He laughs, painfully aware that there was an edge of hysteria. “I was just…” Thinking about how much he misses Richard? Wondering whether Richard loves him as much as he does? Analysing the different ways he can go into permanent hiding? “I’m really bloody jet-lagged, sorry guys, really.”

Afterwards, he knocks back a tequila shot and wonders how many of them it will take to numb his feelings. Then, there’s a tentative hand on his shoulder, and Richard isn’t properly looking at him when he turns around. 

“Can we talk?”

Taron would like nothing less, but at the end of the day an honest conversation is what he came for. He follows Richard down a corridor, past the concerned gazes of Jamie and Bryce, and into a small private conference room.

The door clicks behind them, and Richard stands there looking entirely too uncomfortable to be unphased. 

“Hey.” He mutters, and Taron genuinely doesn’t know what to do with him. 

He has so much to say, but not the right words.

“Did I mean _nothing_ to you?” Taron finally manages to snap, and Richard’s expression automatically folds into shock. He just blinks at Taron, long and wide-eyed, as his mouth opens and closes again with a grate of teeth clashing together when he realises that he’s not got a reply. “Seriously, am I literally just someone you once did a film with?”

Richard’s still not saying anything and without any warning at all, Taron goes from fucking furious to crushingly empty. Tears prick at his lashes like knives but _fuck no_ he is nothing if not stubborn and Richard bloody Madden is not going to watch him cry _goddamnit_.

So, Taron barrels on. The words tumble out of his mouth in a waterfall of vulnerability. “We were best friends, Richard, and then you started flirting with me like I was some girl you’d picked up in a bar. But did I mind? Did I fuck,” he starts waving his arms around in a flurry of aggressive limbs and Richard visibly steps backwards. “I _loved_ being the centre of your attention. It made me feel special! You kissed me for fucks sake, after the Golden Globes, and then radio fucking silence for nearly half a year!”

It hadn’t been half a year, it wasn’t even close, but Taron was literally vibrating with fury.

Richard’s spellbound. He stares at Taron, hurt and shocked, and then:

“Are you seriously fucking blaming _me_ for this?”

Taron extends his neck in disbelief and narrows his eyes. “Did you not listen to a word I just said?”

Richard scoffs and then in a flash his frown turns into pure disgust.

“It took two people to mess this up, Taron.” His voice raises over Taron’s rushed breathing. “A friendship is a two-way thing that requires both people to put in effort.”

“I did put in effort.” Taron fumes. 

“Don’t make me laugh!” Richard actually laughs in his face, a barking cackle that’s worlds away from his genuine wholesome giggle. 

“Richard-”

“We were _never_ friends.”

And that sound right there? Yep, that’s Taron’s heart shattering into a million fractured pieces.

“What?” He hisses, sick and used.

“I never saw you as a friend,” Richard continues, with a hoarse break to his gravelly tone that gave away the tears shining in his own eyes. “I only ever saw you as somebody I loved, more than anyone I’ve ever loved before.”

Oh. Jesus. Mary. And. Joseph.

He’d loved Taron all along. All those times Taron had thought it was just him, an unhealthy obsession, Richard had been thinking exactly the same thing.

“I never said anything because it was obvious I was just your best friend.” The Scotsman reveals and Taron smacks to his hands to his face in disbelief at _their_ stupidity.

“What! No, wait I-”

“That night we had, after the Globes?” Richard seethes and Taron wants to pull him up on the fact that he didn’t mention the fact that he’d kissed him, but the older man charges on through like a bulldozer. “It was the best night of my life, Taron. I thought we were getting somewhere. Then you said- _you said_ \- that anybody you dated in the industry was just a warm body at night.”

The memory in question slices back through Taron’s sub-conscious as he starts reliving the drunken conversation again. He had been five glasses of champagne in, and the recollection is hazy and fading at the edges. Then, nausea climbs up his throat to burn the back of his tongue because Richard’s right, he did say that. He tries the sentence for size and the words taste real, and as bitter as they did when he said it the first time.

“I didn’t mean you, ya’ moron!” He all but screams, because he’s an absolute idiot who doesn’t know when to let things go. But no, Madden was the best thing that ever happened to him and Taron would be damned if he didn’t fight for it, like Elton had fought for John in the early days.

Richard’s lips are parted like he’s got another gush of accusations ready to go when he stutters over Taron’s shriek. He visibly deflates, his hands dropping to his sides in defeat, and gasps.

“What the fuck, Taron?”

“I have always loved you.” Taron says, finally letting the emotion he’d hidden for about a year rush to the surface. He swallows, and the first tears begin to spill down his arching cheekbones. “I thought I could mask it with a friendship, but it turned into an obsession and then it was spiralling and I couldn’t control it. Last month, I realised the gravity of how much I love you and had a breakdown in Elton’s house because I thought I’d driven you away.”

Richard shakes his head vehemently and steps forward in desperation.

“I thought I drove you away when I kissed you. I couldn’t bear for you to have a go at me for it, so I stayed away.”

Taron purses his lips, and blinks in quick succession to take his vision back from the blurry mask of tears. “Dumb fuckin’ thing to do.”

“I know,” Richard says, his expression coming undone further by the second. He drops his gaze to inhale heavily through his nose, and when he looks back up he cracks. His captivating eyes fill with tears, and suddenly he’s crying with force. He could’ve lost this. They could’ve lost each other. “I’m so sorry, T.”

That’s all Taron wanted to hear. He returns the apology, because fuck Richard deserves one too, and opens his arms for Richard to fall into.

They stand there, slowly swaying and crying in huge gulping gasps. Taron had been so obsessed with keeping up the friendship façade, he didn’t look hard enough for the truth, for what Richard wanted.

“Shush, Madden.” He finally manages to say, and Richard fully relaxes against his shoulder. “I’ve got you now.”

-

That Christmas, Taron sat down for an interview with Radio One about his latest project and finally gets the question he’s been waiting for since May.

“Taron,” the new presenter begins and leans her elbows on the desk to lean forwards minutely, giving away her obvious intrigue. “We are so thankful that your bromance with Richard Madden is back in full force after a quiet hiatus. Did he give you any advice about this film?”

Taron can’t help but smile. He thinks about the advice his _boyfriend_ normally gives him, and concludes that it’s mostly about which jeans accentuate his arse the best. He pictures Richard right now, sprawled out in their warm bed, listening to this interview with a playful smirk bubbling on his lips.

“Not to get too obsessed about it.” He finally nods, and tries to subdue the huge grin that’s trying to escape his lips. Taron’s life was finally the dream he’d been chasing. “Obsessions are unhealthy, after all.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fandom is the sweetest, and I hope you enjoyed my first Madderton fic!
> 
> Lmao, even though I know this is purely a figment of my imagination, it's nice to imagine right? I'm not trying to allude to anything in this either, it's completely fiction :)
> 
> X


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